In Praise of Paisley, New Yorker

I don’t know why the New Yorker is suddenly doing anthropological research on red-state America … but as this week’s profile of Brad Paisley reveals, it’s not bad research.
Staff writer Kelefa Sanneh, who once penned reviews for the New York Times, contributes a thoughtful piece on Paisley, whom the author describes as “by some counts, the best-selling singer in American history.”
Maybe it’s the persistent popularity of red-state institutions like country music and NASCAR (racetrack star Danica Patrick was also the subject of a recent New Yorker profile) that makes them so intriguing to the magazine staff … none of whom, presumably, would ask their colleagues, “Hey, did you see the ACM’s last night?” or, “Did you watch the Daytona 500?”
Which is what makes it so welcome when the magazine uses its resources to examine aspects of American pop culture that the intelligentsia often ignores. The magazine ventures outside its traditional world of sipping lattes at Starbucks, browsing Proust at the Strand and watching Audrey Hepburn at Film Forum. The results make for entertaining prose. Paisley, Sanneh reveals, disdains agave syrup and venerates Andy Griffith, whose show’s “balance of wry humor and old-fashioned decency has become a touchstone for (Paisley’s) life, and for his career,” Sanneh writes.
When Sanneh goes beyond the external details, however, the results are intriguing. Sanneh has chosen a good subject to reveal the complexity of country music today. Paisley occasionally sings about topics that both blue-state and red-state audiences might find interesting. For instance, his song “American Saturday Night” evokes terms incorporated from other countries to show us how the melting pot works (“Spanish moss, Italian ice, French kissing in the moonlight … Just another American Saturday Night.”) It’s hard to imagine Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer groovin’ to that song.
Sanneh finds Paisley similarly thoughtful on the issue of race. While the author claims that country music, while “not strictly rural music” and “not strictly Southern … remains white music, by and for white people,” this is challenged by Paisley’s song “Welcome to the Future,” which honors the work of advocates for equality such as Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and denounces the Ku Klux Klan for its racial-intimidation tactics. Sanneh notes that African-American Darius Rucker is now a country star, and observes that Tim McGraw evokes “a multiracial form of Southern pride” in his song “Southern Voice,” which also mentions Parks and Dr. King.
Songs such as “American Saturday Night” and “Welcome to the Future” helped endear Paisley to yours truly. When first listening to him on WKLB-FM (102.5) in the Boston area, I found little to distinguish one of his songs from another. Toby Keith had his brash conservative politics (even if I disagreed with them, I found them entertaining), Garth Brooks had his lyricism, Martina McBride mixed toughness with sensitivity. It was only when Paisley started doing the same thing the New Yorker did -- exploring the wider story of America -- that he began appealing to me.
So let’s appreciate Paisley as he is: an entertaining, sometimes thoughtful guy who makes good music. And let’s appreciate Sanneh and the New Yorker for a thoughtful profile.

Toby Keith Takes Over Boston

We got cowboys … We got truckers …
Broken-hearted fools and suckers …
~Toby Keith, “I Love This Bar”

Now, it seems, Toby Keith has added Bostonians to his camp.
Keith played Boston on the Fourth of July, and while he’s one of my favorites, it wasn’t the right move for the city.
First, some background: With his strong voice and inspired lyrics, Keith is one of country’s biggest contemporary stars, right up there with Garth Brooks and Martina McBride. Unlike Garth or Martina, T.K. revels in being edgy (one of his albums: “White Trash With Money”) and is sometimes prone to stupid statements when he talks politics. Yet he also seems like a guy with a big heart. He regularly visits US servicemembers stationed overseas, including in war-torn countries like Iraq. He also dedicated a moving tribute to the late jazz/basketball star Wayman Tisdale.
With all that going for him -- and the fact that I own his last three albums, plus two greatest-hits compilations -- you’d think I’d give the decision for him to play Boston on the Fourth two thumbs up, right? Wrong. This is the latest example of corporate America dictating to everyone else how things will run. Reminds me of another far-off power writing rules for the little people … the British Parliament of the 1770s.
Back then, we had taxation without representation. Now we have celebration without representation. T.K.’s lyrics are enjoyable, but they have nothing to do with Boston. Texas, yes. Oklahoma, yes. Arkansas, yes. Even New York. But no Massachusetts and no Boston.
I’m guessing that selecting T.K. had little to do with an understanding of or interest in Bostonians’ musical tastes and everything to do with marketing the Fourth to a national audience, many of whose members might find Keith more palatable. (Who do you care about more, the 500K watching on the Esplanade or the six million tuning in on CBS?) Thus the grand traditions of Arthur Fiedler decay into televised tripe where the locals get dissed in favor of people in other states … and, of course, the advertisers.
The organizers of Boston’s Fourth used to show an interest in the music preferences of the host city, bringing in Aerosmith not long ago. But they’re also reaching out to performers with audiences based in other regions -- like Keith’s country contemporary Rascal Flatts. I will admit that country music does have a following in Massachusetts; I regularly listen to it on WKLB-FM (102.5) and, with my muse, attended a packed Keith concert at the Tweeter Center in 2007. But on the big occasions like the Fourth, you should bring in the big guns to represent the host city. If Aerosmith was unavailable, what about Bruce Springsteen, the man who’s played both Fenway Park and the Zakim Bridge? And if they wanted a country star, why not Kenny Chesney (who’s actually performed a song about Boston)?
I didn’t go to the Fourth in Boston this year … I was in New Jersey, enjoying an inspired game of Scrabble with my muse and her family (including a fellow T.K. fan … thanks for the CDs!). I’m glad I missed the Fourth in Boston, too. The city that once resisted the tyranny of the Crown now seems all too willing to accept the tyranny of Big Business.

NY Times too quick to predict end of anti-gay speech

Frank Rich, New York Times columnist, is a little too premature in declaring the end of anti-gay speech in this country.
In a recent op-ed, Rich disses the anti-gay YouTube video "Gathering Storm" and the movement behind it, saying:

What gives the ad its symbolic significance is not just that it’s idiotic but that its release was the only loud protest anywhere in America to the news that same-sex marriage had been legalized in Iowa and Vermont. If it advances any message, it’s mainly that homophobic activism is ever more depopulated and isolated as well as brain-dead.

Not so fast, Frank. The past year reveals that the struggle for gay rights still faces plenty of setbacks, and these setbacks should be noticeable for a guy drawing paychecks from the New York Times. Some examples:

• In January 2008, country/pop star Taylor Swift released a song called "Picture to Burn" in which the singer envisions how she'll slam her ex. "So go and tell your friends/That I’m obsessive and crazy," Swift sings. "That’s fine/I’ll tell mine/You’re gay." Country music blog The 9513 reports that this last line has "been edited out of the radio version," but at least one station didn't get the message: I heard it on Country 102.5-FM yesterday afternoon.
  
• In November 2008, as Barack Obama received a national mandate for change, people in California voted against a particular change: Gay marriage. Fifty-two percent of Golden State voters backed Proposition 8, which would ban gay marriage. The Wall Street Journal said: "The passage of Prop 8 ... would be a major victory for religious conservatives seeking to ban gay marriage in other states, and a crippling setback for the gay rights movement nationwide." And Californians weren't the only ones to pass bans against gay marriage. So did people in two other states -- Arizona and Florida.

So while it's gutsy of Rich to predict the end of anti-gay talk in the US, the road ahead is still in some ways as hard as it was in the Harvey Milk days. It's still too easy for anti-gay lyrics to surface in songs, or for anti-gay marriage campaigns to win at the polls. May this change in the year ahead.